Page 43 of Untouched Queen by Royal Command

CHAPTER EIGHT

‘DOESITHURT?’

Sera couldn’t believe how gentle Augustus was being as he bathed her, every stroke of the wash cloth a caress, the water soothing on her skin and the lowlights in the sconces making shadows dance on the walls. He’d been born to care for people, this King, even if he did it from behind self-imposed walls. Get behind the walls of the man and he was overwhelmingly responsive to passion and possession and taking overwhelmingly good care of the woman in his arms.

‘It doesn’t hurt,’ she assured him as he dragged the wash cloth slowly over her centre folds. She’d been a virgin, yes, but her life to date had been an active one and penetration hadn’t hurt her the way she’d been warned it might. If the lover was careless or in too much of a hurry.

Augustus had been neither.

‘I liked it very much,’ she offered and thought to win a smile from him, but he didn’t smile.

‘Guess you’re in the right profession, then.’

Her smile faltered. ‘I guess so.’

‘Sera—’

But she didn’t want to hear what that roughened, sex-soaked voice had to say next. Didn’t want to spoil this night with politics or reality or the sure knowledge that she was never going to get to keep this man on a permanent basis. She told herself she didn’t want to keep him. That what he’d given her was enough. That she could still walk away from him with her heart intact.

She tried to believe it.

She put her finger to his mouth to silence him, and when he put his hand to her wrist and drew her finger away, she replaced it with her mouth. ‘There’s more we could do,’ she whispered against his lips. He’d been tender with her but she knew there was more. The fingers at her wrist tightened. ‘You know there’s more you could teach me.’

‘Eager.’

‘I’ve been waiting a long time.’

‘For me?’ This time when he caressed her folds the wash cloth was gone. ‘Or for sex?’

‘All of it. I didn’t expect to want you as much as I do. I could kiss you for hours.’ No one had ever told her she’d feel like this. ‘Soft and gentle.’ Because he had been so very, very gentle with her. Taking care of her pleasure before his own. Reining himself in. ‘Or not. Let’s try not.’

He claimed her lips with his in a punishing kiss that she returned in full measure. Slick-scraping and filthy, it sent a lightning arc straight through her. And the passion grew.

With a rough fist in his wet hair, she dragged his lips from hers. ‘You’ve seen me dance with swords. You know I’m not going to break.’ She knew where she was going with this and it was like stepping off a ledge with a trapeze swing in hand and no knowledge at all of where they might land. ‘You know we’re not going to be able to have this for ever, but we do have tonight and I want you inside me again, cursing me because you’ve never had it so good. Ride me till you scream. Or I scream. Take me apart and put me back together again with a piece of you in me.’ He was on board with every loaded word, if his glittering, hooded gaze and his iron-hard erection was any indication. ‘So do me a favour and this time don’t hold back.’

He carried her, wet and wanting, to an alcove filled with pillows and throw rugs and all manner of oils and unguents.

And this time he didn’t hold back.

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